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Dredge
Lore description Birth Born as Callum Herco, in a small town of fishermen and sailors called Ol'Reef, built at the feet of the Ozmarin Cliffs; he grew up learning the art of sailing. Being seen by other villagers as the worst sailor they had seen in ages, Callum's childhood was oppressive to say the least, and the constant mockery made him lonely. In his periods of profound sadness, he would travel in the surrounding countryside until he found a natural cave, pierced through the cliffs by the waves, in which he would chose to enter. Becoming a thief This cave was the ancient, secret hideout of the hordes of Ozmendar, during the first Goblin Scourge. Deciding to establish his own lair there, he began pilfering the city, to loot and bring back materials and tools to improve his quarters, as well as money and jewels for his own pleasure. No one suspected such a foolish and naive young lad to be the culprit and it was this that he began to use to his advantage. By the age of 17, he had managed to gather enough supplies and resources to build his own ship. And in that selfsame year he set sail in the middle of the night, abandoning everything behind him, and leaving only a mocking letter addressed to the villagers, hanging in the middle of the city. As he was not good at sailing, however, he soon ran aground on a beach near Mallekor -the city built under the ruins of a Ska'Drin temple- where he was recovered, nearly drowning. Wanted by the people of Ol'Reef, he had to flee as soon as he was able. The first steps of a pirate He managed to join a group of sailors who went to sea the same day he made his escape, being hired as a sailor, while remaining very discreet about his identity. Once out on the open sea, he discovered that he had set foot in a crew of pirates, ready to do anything to make a fortune. He took to the rhythm of piracy on the high seas and took a liking to the journey and the freedom of it all. He then resolved to learn all of the navigation skills, eventually making him one of the best sailors of the entire crew. One day, the group crossed paths with that of Captain Albert-Alexander, the Grand Officer of the Magistrate's Royal Navy. The pirate captain decided to launch an assault against the Frigate, against all expectations, hoping to take over the enemy ship. The attack soured quickly however as the Magistrate's forces were better equipped and prepared for the attack. When the two warships finally collided, the captain of the pirates with some of his men boarded the Royal ship. Knowing the fate that was reserved for them if he did not act, Callum decided to take the lead to save the pirates. He fought fiercely for his own life and maintained the badly damaged ship afloat, all the while fighting off the Royal Navy's sailors who tried to board. Eventually in the struggle, he lost his left eye. When the opportunity presented itself, he wrenched their ship from the Imperial Frigate causing the water to come pouring into the Magistrate vessel. Shouting, he called for the men to return to their ship and then fired a precise cannon shot into the gunpowder hold of the Magistrate ship. With a loud explosion the enemy ship began to sink. It was then that he noticed their beloved admiral was still on the deck, badly wounded, but struggling to stay alive. Without a second thought, the young boy ordered one of the men to man the wheel and he took a rope and dove into the sea to help the Captain. With shouts of the men to bring her about to rescue Callum and the Captain, the lad grabbed him and began to swim back towards their ship. "Foolish boy, can't ye see I'm killed," the Captain said. He had taken a liking to him in their journeyings and felt he was almost like a son. "Leave me to the sea lad," he said before handing him his pirate's blaster as well as a peculiar scroll encased in a jeweled tube which he had managed to recover from the Magistrate Captain in his duel. "It's yer time to lead, m'boy," he said before sinking into the depths. The crew then recovered Callum and they managed to flee with the remaining troops before the rest of teh Magistrate's armada could beset them, and they returned to shelter in the old hiding place of the pirate. The surviving sailors -although plunged into mourning- also had reason to rejoice for their lives and proclaimed the young pirate Admiral, for it was through his efforts that they had bested the most powerful vessel of the Magistrate's Navy. The great Admiral Herco was born, and with the help of his devoted pirates, they sailed the seas time and again, gaining a fierce reputation and forging a frightening legend upon all who would sail the eight oceans. Birth of Admiral Dredge In the years that soon followed, Admiral Herco increased his victories on the high seas. His faithful crew gained even more members, and all together they set off in pursuit of all the ships and harbors they saw, to loot, plunder, and pillage in the name of glory and freedom. The Admiral's technique, though always the same, was extremely effective: approach the enemy ship and make it sink while taking as few prisoners as possible. Once the carcass of the ship was lying at the bottom of the sea, sailors plunged down deep, tied the treasures and secured them tight, and brought up her treasures from the depths. This rather strange technique earned the Callum the nickname of Admiral Dredge. When the hiding place near Ol'Reef collapsed after an earthquake, the pirates were forced to find a new place to hide their booty. The crew found the perfect place after several weeks of travel, taking with them what remained of their treasures. They stopped on an abandoned island, far away from the old mangroves, and settled there. Calling themselves "the Marauders of the Eight Oceans", they built a whole harbor city, which they finally named: "the Marauder's Port". This city became the piece of an incredibly large network of trafficking, contraband, and racketeering; known throughout the Realm, but only by the biggest crime organisations. The Dragon's call A few years prior to the start of the Chrono Crisis, the beacon of the ancient order of the Warders, was lit. Dredge cared nothing for the call to help, all that interested him was the possibility of recovering the relics of the temple, whose position was previously unknown. Using the jeweled case given him by his former Captain, Dredge found the location of the Warder's treasure and resolved to get there before anyone else would come to answer the Dragon's Call. When they arrived on the island, they saw the temple and rushed inside. The crew walked through the corridors of the temple that nature had overtaken, until they arrived at one of the oldest rooms of the temple. Once inside, they pillaged everything of value they could find, but an object of great importance was missing: The Warder's Gauntlets. Realizing that they had been outpaced, the mission's goal changed: the ancient relic had to be taken back, whatever the cost. The gauntlets were not only one of the most profitable things the admiral could sell on the black market, but also an overpowered weapon that Dredge could perhaps use for his own purposes. Taking the Relics They left the temple and took to the sea immediately, without taking the time to load all the treasures they had recovered. Many boats arrived on the same quest for treasure, but only one seemed to be leaving: a large blue-sailing boat belonging to the Resistance fleet. They then beset upon the frigate hunting in pursuit using the expert sailing techniques of the Admiral and caught it quickly. They assaulted the boat, without restraint, and without mercy. The mages of the Resistance did their best to defend against the pirate assault, but Dredge was unmoved. The old, adventurer Sha Lin even tried to catch him by surprise, but the Admiral easily managed to dodge his attacks in time and threw him overboard. He then triumphantly took and put the relics in a bag, and then returned to his crew who held the surviving Resistance members on their knees on deck. No one knew what awakened the dragon slumbering under the mountain: perhaps was it the cannons of the armies that were trying to penetrate the temple to take its treasures, or maybe it was to prevent the pirate Admiral from possessing the gauntlets. Either way, the monstrous creature erupted from beneath the mountain, and spat fire on all of the surrounding armies ashore, before settings its eyes upon the ships, under a downpour of flame and ash. The admiral and his crew hurried back to their ship and fled without taking the time to set fire and sink the rebel's ship. Rebirth of the Admiral Dredge Maur, the ancient and greatest weapon of the Warders, had been awakened and was now heading straight for them. Knowing that the Dragon would catch them in spite of their speed, the marauders hastily equipped themselves to face the scaled behemoth. However Maur, had eyes only for the Admiral who was in possession of the ancient relics. Dredge feared nothing at all and met the Dragon head on eager to show the beast his capacities, full of pride and vainglory. Each pirate prepared their weapons : Dredge took out his hunting harpoon in one hand and his blaster in the other, while the dragon was preparing another fountain of flames. Before the crew knew what happened, Dredge grabbed a rope and launched himself into the air straight towards the dragon. With the rage of the Eight Seas, he planted his harpoon in the heart of the beast, plunging it deep between his scales. He then jammed his blaster into the now open would, and with a roar, fired a massive explosion into the beast's chest. In a murderous roar of agony and pain, the dragon slammed his mighty claw and beat its chest one last time shattering the body of the old pirate. Helpless, the crew watched as both Dredge and the mighty dragon lunged into the dark waters of Blackhorn bay slipping beneath the waves and sinking into the unknown depths. The ocean seemed to roil with fervor as the beast collapsed causing a massive tidal wave that overturned the Marauder's ship. Callum Herco, exhausted for the first time in his life and with body broken and bleeding resigned himself to the sea, exhaling his final breath beneath the waves as he slipped into the ocean's abyss. His soul fought to leave his body as death overtook him, but a strange magic from beyond the void interposed. Someone...or something seemed to still need Dredge alive on this earth... sort of. The dead gone to sail again In the depths of the sea, a soul had waited too long for an opportunity of revenge. Wampyr, a horrible creature born from the worst complaints emerging from the abyss had been forced to remain in the mortal world by the other monsters of the darker dimension, and forced to stay underwater by its scaled enemy who had plunged it there, millennias ago. The creature, for several thousand years, had mutated to adapt to its environment. So Wampyr, abyssal icon of deceit and betrayal, had no difficulty in finding a certain correspondence with the biggest bandit of the eight oceans. The horror decided to do no more than one with the fallen admiral, so that both could take their revenge and everyone had his part of the cake : Admiral Dredge could live again, while following the meticulous orders of the observeing demon who still pulled the strings in the shadows, to take back the place that was due to him, in the abyss. Thanks to his capabilities of necromancy, Dredge retured its full crew back to life. And all those who had preferred to escape to save their lives, were caught up, drowned, before beingbrought back to life too, as a punishment for their cowardice. The robbed thief After coming back with his crew to The Marauder's Port and after redoing the city to better receive the relics and the beast that followed them, the port was attacked. A one-woman-army called Imani made her way into the loot hiding-place to steal The Warder's Gauntlets. She was the last member of the Warders and answered the call too late, as the relics had already been stolen when she arrived to the temple. After a fight with many pirates, she suceeded to get back the relics and get away with them, enraging the Admiral Dredge. Now, the Marauders of the Eight oceans prepare their revenge at best. No one can trample them in this way, and they are ready for anything, to make the woman who laughed at them pay for it.